Elite membership:

There are three status tiers of Hilton Honors:

Silver - Achieved through 4 stays or 10 nights. You can also receive Silver status for taking out the Barclays Hilton Honors Reward credit card.

Gold - Achieved through 20 stays, 40 nights or 75,000 Hilton Honors Base Points. You also receive Gold by spending £10,000 in one year on the Barclays Hilton Honors Reward credit card or having the American Express Platinium charge card.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles can be collected at a rate of 2 points per US$1 of spending. Avios earns less, BA gives 1 point per US$1, Iberia Plus gives 1.5 points per US$1 however, points are capped, so for more expensive stays BA avios is better.

Hilton regulaly offers additional points through their promotional offers. Members can currently earn double points with each stay. For more information on this promotion, click here.

Redeeming Rewards

Currently, the number of points required for a redemption, is based on the cash price of each hotel. As a result the 'pence per point' value varies between 0.33p to 0.45p.

By offering redemptions in this way, Hilton Honors has made it possible to combine any amount of points (in 1000 point increments) with cash when seeking a redemption. With the 5th night free for status members effectively serving as a 20% discount.

Airline Redemptions

As well as providing the opportunity of collecting additional airmile with every booking, Hilton Honors also enables you to transfer points into a range of different airmile schemes including BA and Virgin. As always with these transfers, the rates are pretty dismal at 10:1 for BA and 7:1 for Virgin.

Purchasing Points

Points can be purchased for US$12.50 per 1000 points (large purchaces offer a better rate). Hilton regularly offers bonuses on such purchases, in some cases as much as 100%! Points can be purchased here.

Credit Card partners

As discussed earlier, Silver status can be achieved by taking out the Barclay Hilton Honors Reward credit card. The card itself is free to obtain and offers 3 points per £1 spent at Hilton properties, and 2 points per £1 on all other purchases. The card also offers a free night e-certificate, when you spend £750 in the first 90 days of membership. Spending £10,000 per year upgrades your status level to Gold.

The other cards that offer Hilton status are the fee paying American Express Platinum charge card, which offers instant Gold status, and the invite only, fee paying Centurion Card (also by American Express) which offers Diamond status. The American Express cards allow you to collect American Express Rewards points which can also be transferred to Hilton at a rate of 1 American Express Rewards points : 2 Hilton Honors points.

Other Ways to Redeem

Hilton Honors points can be redeemed on shopping at Amazon. However, this represents very poor 'points per pence' value.

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Dr Ross Slater

Ross is Expert with Points' main contributor. Sharing his knowledge of various travel reward schemes, to help your travelling go further.